nation became independent.

that the spirit of the popery laws, and some even However, as the English in Ireland began to be of their actual provisions, as applied between Eng- domiciliated, they began also to recollect that they lishry and Irishry, had existed in that harassed coun- had a country. The English interest, at first by try before the words protestant and papist were faint and almost insensible degrees, but at length heard of in the world. If we read Baron Finglass, openly and avowedly, became an independent Spenser, and Sir John Davis, we cannot miss the Irish interest; full as independent as it could true genius and policy of the English government ever have been, if it had continued in the persons there before the Revolution, as well as during the of the native Irish; and it was maintained with whole reign of Queen Elizabeth. Sir John Davis more skill, and more consistency, than probably it boasts of the benefits received by the natives, by would have been in theirs. With their views, the extending to them the English law, and turning Anglo-Irish changed their maxims-it was necesthe whole kingdom into shire ground. But the sary to demonstrate to the whole people, that there appearance of things alone was changed. The was something, at least, of a common interest, original scheme was never deviated from for a combined with the independency, which was to single hour. Unheard-of confiscations were made become the object of common exertions. The in the northern parts, upon grounds of plots and mildness of government produced the first relaxaconspiracies, never proved upon their supposed tion towards the Irish; the necessities, and, in authors. The war of chicane succeeded to the part too, the temper that predominated at this war of arms and of hostile statutes; and a regular great change, produced the second and the most series of operations was carried on, particularly important of these relaxations. English governfrom Chichester's time, in the ordinary courts of ment, and Irish legislature, felt jointly the projustice, and by special commissioners and inquisi-priety of this measure. The Irish parliament and tions; first under pretence of tenures, and then of titles in the Crown, for the purpose of the total extirpation of the interest of the natives in their own soil-until this species of subtle ravage, being carried to the last excess of oppression and insolence under Lord Strafford, it kindled the flames of that rebellion which broke out in 1641. By the issue of that war, by the turn which the Earl of Clarendon gave to things at the Restoration, and by the total reduction of the kingdom of Ireland in 1691, the ruin of the native Irish, and, in a great measure too, of the first races of the English, was completely accomplished. The new English interest was settled with as solid a stability as any thing in human affairs can look for. All the penal laws of that unparalleled code of oppression, which were made after the last event, were manifestly the effects of national hatred and scorn towards a conquered people; whom the victors delighted to trample upon, and were not at all afraid to provoke. They were not the effect of their fears but of their security. They who carried on this system looked to the irresistible force of Great Britain for their support in their acts of power. They were quite certain, that no complaints of the natives would be heard on this side of the water, with any other sentiments than those of contempt and indignation. Their cries served only to augment their torture. Machines which could answer their purposes so well must be of an excellent contrivance. Indeed, in England, the double name of the complainant, Irish and Papists, (it would be hard to say which singly was the most odious,) shut up the hearts of every one against them. Whilst that temper prevailed, and it prevailed in all its force to a time within our memory, every measure was pleasing and popular, just in proportion as it tended to harass and ruin a set of people who were looked upon as enemies to God and man; and, indeed, as a race of bigotted savages who were a disgrace to human nature itself.

The true revolution to you, that which most intrinsically and substantially resembled the English Revolution of 1688, was the Irish Revolution of 1782. The Irish parliament of 1782 bore little resemblance to that which sat in that kingdom, after the period of the first of these revolutions. It bore a much nearer resemblance to that which sat under King James. The change of the parliament in 1782 from the character of the parliament which, as a token of its indignation, had burned all the journals indiscriminately of the former parliament in the council-chamber, was very visible. The address of King William's parliament, the parliament which assembled after the Revolution, amongst other causes of complaint, (many of them sufficiently just,) complains of the repeal by their predecessors of Poyning's law; no absolute idol with the parliament of 1782.

Great Britain, finding the Anglo-Irish highly animated with a spirit, which had indeed shewn itself before, though with little energy, and many interruptions, and therefore suffered a multitude of uniform precedents to be established against it, acted, in my opinion, with the greatest temperance and wisdom. She saw that the disposition of the leading part of the nation would not permit them to act any longer the part of a garrison. She saw, that true policy did not require that they ever should have appeared in that character; or if it had done so formerly, the reasons had now ceased to operate. She saw that the Irish of her race were resolved to build their constitution and their politicks upon another bottom. With those things under her view, she instantly complied with the whole of your demands, without any reservation whatsoever. She surrendered that boundless superiority, for the preservation of which, and the acquisition, she had supported the English colonies in Ireland for so long a time, and so vast an expence (according to the standard of those ages) of her blood and treasure.

When we bring before us the matter which history affords for our selection, it is not improper to examine the spirit of the several precedents, which are candidates for our choice. Might it not be as well for your statesmen, on the other side of the water, to take an example from this latter, and surely more conciliatory, revolution, as a pattern for your conduct towards your own fellow-citizens, than from that of 1688, when a paramount sovereignty over both you and them was more loftily claimed, and more sternly exerted, than at any former or at any subsequent period? Great Britain, in 1782, rose above the vulgar ideas of policy, the ordinary jealousies of state, and all the sentiments of national pride and national ambition. If she had been more disposed than, I thank God for it, she was, to listen to the suggestions of passion, than to the dictates of prudence; she might have urged the principles, the maxims, the policy, the practice of the Revolution, against the demands of the leading description in Ireland, with full as much plausibility, and full as good a grace, as any amongst them can possibly do, against the supplications of so vast and extensive a description of their own people.

|

the people to the benefits from which the green soreness of a civil war had not excluded them, will be productive of no sort of mischief whatsoever. Compare what was done in 1782, with what is wished in 1792; consider the spirit of what has been done at the several periods of reformation ; and weigh maturely, whether it be exactly true. that conciliatory concessions are of good policy only in discussions between nations; but that among descriptions in the same nation, they must always be irrational and dangerous. What have you suffered in your peace, your prosperity, or, in what ought ever to be dear to a nation, your glory, by the last act by which you took the property of that people under the protection of the laws? What reasons have you to dread the consequences of admitting the people possessing that property to some share in the protection of the constitution? I do not mean to trouble you with any thing to remove the objections, I will not call them arguments, against this measure, taken from a ferocious hatred to all that numerous description of Christians. It would be to pay a poor compliment to your understanding or your heart. Neither your religion, nor your politicks, consists ❝ in odd perverse antipathies." You are not resolved to persevere in proscribing from the constitution so many millions of your countrymen, because, in contradiction to experience and to common sense, you think proper to imagine, that their principles are subversive of common human society. To that I shall only say, that whosoever has a temper which can be gratified by indulging himself in these goodnatured fancies ought to do a great deal more. For an exclusion from the privileges of British subjects is not a cure for so terrible a distemper of the human mind, as they are pleased to suppose in their countrymen. I rather conceive a participation in those privileges to be itself a remedy for some mental disorders.

66

A good deal too, if the spirit of domination and exclusion had prevailed in England, might have been excepted against some of the means then employed in Ireland, whilst her claims were in agitation. They were, at least, as much out of ordinary course, as those which are now objected against admitting your people to any of the benefits of an English constitution. Most certainly, neither with you, nor here, was any one ignorant of what was at that time said, written, and done. But on all sides we separated the means from the end and we separated the cause of the moderate and rational, from the ill-intentioned and seditious; which on such occasions are so frequently apt to march together. At that time, on your part, you were not afraid to review what was done As little shall I detain you with matters that can at the Revolution of 1688; and what had been as little obtain admission into a mind like yours; continued during the subsequent flourishing period such as the fear, or pretence of fear, that, in spite of the British empire. The change then made was of your own power, and the trifling power of a great and fundamental alteration. In the exe- Great Britain, you may be conquered by the pope; cution, it was an operose business on both sides of or that this commodious bugbear (who is of infithe water. It required the repeal of several laws; nitely more use to those who pretend to fear, than the modification of many, and a new course to be to those who love him) will absolve His Majesgiven to an infinite number of legislative, judicial, ty's subjects from their allegiance, and send over and official practices and usages in both kingdoms. the cardinal of York to rule you as his viceroy; This did not frighten any of us. You are now or that, by the plenitude of his power, he will take asked to give, in some moderate measure, to your that fierce tyrant, the king of the French, out of fellow-citizens, what Great Britain gave to you, his jail, and arm that nation (which on all occawithout any measure at all. Yet, notwithstanding sions treats his holiness so very politely) with his all the difficulties at the time, and the apprehen- bulls and pardons, to invade poor old Ireland, to sions which some very well-meaning people enter- reduce you to popery and slavery, and to force tained, through the admirable temper in which the free-born, naked feet of your people into the this revolution (or restoration in the nature of a wooden shoes of that arbitrary monarch. I do not revolution) was conducted in both kingdoms, it believe that discourses of this kind are held, or has hitherto produced no inconvenience to either; that any thing like them will be held, by any who and I trust, with the continuance of the same tem-walk about without a keeper. Yet, I confess, that per, that it never will. I think that this small, inconsiderable change (relative to an exclusive statute not made at the Revolution) for restoring

on occasions of this nature, I am the most afraid of the weakest reasonings; because they discover the strongest passions. These things will never be

which all the sovereign powers in the world are approached; and I never heard (except in the case of James the Second) that any prince considered this manner of supplication to be contrary to the humility of a subject, or to the respect due to the person or authority of the sovereign. This rule, and a correspondent practice, are observed, from the Grand Seignior, down to the most petty prince or republick in Europe.

purest affection towards their fellow-sufferers; it is, that they act under the impression of a wellgrounded fear for the general interest. If they should be told, and should believe the story, that if they dare attempt to make their condition better, they will infallibly make it worse that if they aim at obtaining liberty, they will have their slavery doubled that their endeavour to put themselves upon any thing which approaches towards an equitable footing with their fellow-subjects will You have sent me several papers, some in print, be considered as an indication of a seditious and some in manuscript. I think I had seen all of them, rebellious disposition-such a view of things ought except the formula of association. I confess they perfectly to restore the gentlemen, who so anxi- appear to me to contain matter mischievous, and ously dissuade their countrymen from wishing a capable of giving alarm, if the spirit in which they participation with the privileged part of the people, are written should be found to make any considerto the good opinion of their fellows. But what is able progress. But I am at a loss to know how to to them a very full justification, is not quite so apply them, as objections to the case now before honourable to that power from whose maxims and us. When I find that the general committee, which temper so good a ground of rational terrour is fur- acts for the Roman catholicks in Dublin, prefers nished. I think arguments of this kind will never the association proposed in the written draft you be used by the friends of a government which I have sent me, to a respectful application in parliagreatly respect; or by any of the leaders of an ment, I shall think the persons who sign such a opposition whom I have the honour to know, and paper to be unworthy of any privilege which may the sense to admire. I remember Polybius tells be thought fit to be granted; and that such men us, that, during his captivity in Italy as a Pelo- ought, by name, to be excepted from any benefit ponnesian hostage-he solicited old Cato to inter- under the constitution to which they offer this cede with the senate for his release, and that of violence. But I do not find that this form of a his countrymen this old politician told him that seditious league has been signed by any person he had better continue in his present condition, whatsoever, either on the part of the supposed prohowever irksome, than apply again to that formida-jectors, or on the part of those whom it is calcuble authority for their relief; that he ought to lated to seduce. I do not find, on enquiry, that imitate the wisdom of his countryman Ulysses, who, such a thing was mentioned, or even remotely alwhen he was once out of the den of the Cyclops, luded to, in the general meeting of the catholicks, had too much sense to venture again into the same from which so much violence was apprehended. cavern. But I conceive too high an opinion of the I have considered the other publications, signed by Irish legislature to think that they are to their fel- individuals, on the part of certain societies-I may low-citizens, what the grand oppressors of man- mistake, for I have not the honour of knowing kind were to a people whom the fortune of war them personally, but I take Mr. Butler and Mr. had subjected to their power. For though Cato Tandy not to be catholicks, but members of the could use such a parallel with regard to his senate, established church. Not one that I recollect of these I should really think it nothing short of impious, to publications which you and I equally dislike apcompare an Irish parliament to a den of Cyclops. pears to be written by persons of that persuasion. I hope the people, both here and with you, will al- Now, if, whilst a man is dutifully soliciting a faways apply to the house of commons with becom- vour from parliament, any person should choose, ing modesty; but at the same time with minds in an improper manner, to shew his inclination unembarrassed with any sort of terrour. towards the cause depending; and if that must As to the means which the catholicks employ destroy the cause of the petitioner; then, not only to obtain this object, so worthy of sober and ra- the petitioner, but the legislature itself, is in the tional minds: I do admit that such means may be power of any weak friend or artful enemy, that used in the pursuit of it, as may make it proper for the supplicant or that the parliament may have. the legislature, in this case, to defer their compli- A man must be judged by his own actions only. ance until the demandants are brought to a pro- Certain protestant dissenters make seditious proper sense of their duty. A concession in which positions to the catholicks, which it does not apthe governing power of our country loses its dig-pear that they have yet accepted. It would be nity, is dearly bought even by him who obtains his object. All the people have a deep interest in the dignity of parliament. But as the refusal of franchises which are drawn out of the first vital stamina of the British constitution is a very serious thing, we ought to be very sure, that the manner and spirit of the application is offensive and dangerous indeed, before we ultimately reject all applications of this nature. The mode of application, I hear, is by petition. It is the manner in

strange that the tempter should escape all punishment, and that he, who, under circumstances full of seduction and full of provocation, has resisted the temptation, should incur the penalty. You know, that, with regard to the dissenters, who are stated to be the chief movers in this vile scheme of altering the principles of election to a right of voting by the head, you are not able (if you ought even to wish such a thing) to deprive them of any part of the franchises and privileges which